Asian countries outperformed the rest of the world in the OECD’s latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey, which evaluates the knowledge and skills of the world’s 15-year-olds.
The OECD’s PISA 2012 tested more than 510,000 students in 65 countries and economies on mathematics, reading and science. The main focus was on math, proficiency which is regarded as a strong predictor of positive outcomes for young adults, as it influences their ability to participate in post-secondary education and their expected future earnings.
Shanghai-China, and Singapore were top in math, with students in Shanghai scoring the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling above most OECD countries. Hong Kong-China, Chinese Taipei, South Korea, Macao-China, Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Netherlands were also in the group of top-performing countries.
“With high levels of youth unemployment, rising inequality and a pressing need to boost growth in many countries, it’s more urgent than ever that young people learn the skills they need to succeed,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría during the launch in Washington D.C.
The survey reveals several features of the best education systems. Top performers, notably in Asia, place great emphasis on selecting and training teachers, encourage them to work together and prioritise investment in teacher quality, not classroom sizes. They also set clear targets and give teachers autonomy in the classroom to achieve them.
Children whose parents have high expectations perform better: they tend to try harder, have more confidence in their own ability and are more motivated to learn.
Improvements
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Of those 64 countries with trend data in math up to 2012, twenty-five improved in mathematics, 25 showed no change and 14 did worse. Brazil, Germany, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Tunisia and Turkey have shown a consistent improvement over this period. Italy, Poland and Portugal also increased their share of top performers and reduced their share of low performers. Germany, Mexico and Turkey also managed to improve the performance of their weakest students, many of whom came from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This shows that countries can simultaneously improve equity and raise performance. |
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Gender gap
Boys perform better than girls in math. They scored higher in 37 out of the 65 countries and economies, while girls outperform boys in five countries. The gender gap is relatively small though; in only six countries is it greater than the equivalent of half a year of formal schooling.
During the years 2000 to 2012, the gender gap in reading performance – favouring girls – widened in 11 countries and economies. Boys and girls perform similarly in science.
Reading
Of the 64 countries and economies with comparable data up to 2012, 32 improved their reading performance, 22 showed no change, and 10 deteriorated. Chile, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and Turkey improved their reading performance across successive assessments.
Across OECD countries, 8.4% of students are top performers in reading. Shanghai-China has the largest proportion of top performers – 25.1%. More than 15% of students in Hong Kong-China, Japan and Singapore are top performers in reading, as are more than 10% of students in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Ireland, Korea, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway and Chinese Taipei.
Science
Shanghai-China, Hong Kong-China, Singapore, Japan and Finland are the top five performers in science in PISA 2012. Estonia, Korea, Viet Nam, Poland, Canada, Liechtenstein, Germany, Chinese Taipei, the Netherlands, Ireland, Australia, Macao-China, New Zealand, Switzerland, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Belgium score above the OECD average in science.
Across OECD countries, 8.4% of students are top performers in science and score at the highest levels. This compares to more than 15% of students in Shanghai-China (27.2%), Singapore (22.7%), Japan (18.2%), Finland (17.1%) and Hong Kong China (16.7%).
Schools and students
The survey revealed that high-performing school systems tend to allocate resources more equitably across socio economically advantaged and disadvantaged schools.
Teacher-student relations improved during the period 2003 to 2012 in all but one country, according to students’ reports. The disciplinary climate also improved during the period, on average across OECD countries and in 27 individual countries and economies.
Immigrants
The share of immigrant students in OECD countries increased from 9% in 2003 to 12% in 2012. Over this period, the performance disadvantage of immigrant students compared to students without an immigrant background but with similar socio-economic status, shrank by 11 score points, equivalent to three months of schooling.
United States
The survey reveals that the United States ranks below the OECD average in every category.
Teenagers in the U.S. slipped from 25th to 31st in math since 2009; from 20th to 24th in science; and from 11th to 21st in reading, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, which gathers and analyzes the data in the U.S.
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